Perspectives
by Acid Jazz Singer
Summary: He watched her as she entered, her dark eyes catching his as she walked towards the counter. She was smiling at him, all warm and sweet and perfectly inviting.Zane looks back on the choices he has made.A look at the differences between the two timelines.


This was just an attempt at explaining what exactly had happened between Jo and Zane in the new timeline that put them in such a situation. Amy is my own character (or at the very least a name of a character that I might _actually_ create later on) and is just an idea on why things turned out the way they did in the new season. I'm thinking of continuing this by writing something from Zane's perspective for each episode, though I'm not certain yet...

**I do not, nor will I ever, own the show _EUReKA _or its characters no matter how much I would like to...**

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It had all come down to a choice.

A single, finite moment where he had stood frozen at the crossroads, two very different paths laid out before him. Each road was dark, dangerous in its own way. The future of both choices were murky and dim and far from what he could ever possibly understand. That fact alone was enough to scare him, terrify him beyond all belief even. And to have to make such a potentially life changing decision in _Cafe Diem_ of all places.

He watched her as she had entered, her dark eyes catching his as she walked towards the counter. She was smiling at him, all warm and sweet and so perfectly inviting. _"Take her to the ballet."_ Carter's advice, a small gesture of consent tainted with an underlying warning tone. _"I won't kill you if you take my daughter out...but if you will wish I had if you break her heart."_ Zane was pretty certain - looking back later - that every boy Zoe had ever dated had been on the receiving end of the very same subtle (if not terrifyingly _obvious_) message. He wasn't sure if he could really handle that sort of responsibility...

So there he was, debating. He could go ahead, walk up to pretty Deputy Lupo and ask her out on a date. Take her to the ballet, be charming, make her laugh. They could - potentially - agree to see each other more. He would get to know her, figure out every little thing until the attraction turned into a warm liking and - because he knew himself and because he had been down that road before - he would fall in love with her. They would move in together, fight over who would get which side of the bed, decide on colors of paint for the wall, argue over what the spare room of the house would be used for - he imaged it well, he would want an at home lab, she would want a gun room - share meals and decide on movies to watch. He would meet her family, she would meet his. He would fall fast and he would fall hard and would get himself so tangled up in _her_ that he wouldn't even know who _he_was anymore. Josefina Lupo was just the kind of girl he _could_ love that completely.

And then it would happen.

Like a clock running out of time, the seconds slowing, the gears grinding to a halting, jolting end. She would begin to distance herself. Uncertainties, trust issues, the sense of entrapment. As he continued to fall further under her spell she would pull further away from him. While he fell in love with her, she would come to the conclusion that he wasn't the one that she wanted. That there were other fish in the sea and that she had better options at her disposal. By the time he realized what was happening she would be onto the next best thing to come along. _Just like Amy, just like before..._

He knew better than to think he could live through it a second time.

So he stood, the choices he was faced with looming before him like the angry heads of a thunder storm. He could walk up to her then and there, ask her out, see what happened and risk going through the painful process all over again or...or he take the other possibility. Pull out all the stops and throw up all the walls and lock her out. Protect himself from the certainty of getting his heart broken and keep her at arm's length where she could do the least amount of damage to his already battered heart. He knew he could do it easily, a few taunts, some callous remarks, she didn't know him very well, it wouldn't take much. In a matter of a few days he could get her to hate him with all the intensity of the little big bang growing in his new lab. If she hated him he could hate her right back and if he hated her - really, truly hated her - he could keep her from completely destroying the remains of his war worn heart.

Carter had stepped away from him, moving on with his day. Zane watched him go for a moment before turning his attention to Jo at the counter where she was ordering a Vinspresso. He stared at her for a long time, looking like a fool as he stood in the middle of the restaurant. She was talking to Vincent, pulling her hair out of the band and running her fingers through it for a moment before confining the long locks once again. She really _was_ beautiful. He turned away from her, feeling cold as he made his decision and headed out of the restaurant. Intent on getting his things out of the jail cell he had momentarily called home and finding a proper place to live. It would be easier to start a war where he wasn't forced to see her begin to hate seeing his face every day.

He doubted he would ever learn what the other path held for him. Whether Jo Lupo would break his already unsteady heart or whether they would have been happy together. What he did know was that the next few years were a long, arduous mess of violently jabbing at all of the Deputy's - and later head of GD Security's - buttons and her responding with furious tangents and the more than occasional stints of throwing him in jail. Her face never would get any less pretty and she never would be any less beautiful of a person in his eyes, but he could use the scowl he put on her face and the snide comments she defended herself with to distract him of those thoughts. It worked, as he had suspected it would long ago in the town's only Cafe, and the wedge he drove forcefully between them worked well to help reinforce the fences he had encircling his heart.

That was, however, it had worked until Founder's Day, when she has suddenly and dramatically changed on him. Keeping his distance was going to be a lot harder if she continued to look at him like he was the only thing that mattered in her world. And keeping up his jagged, unapproachable façade up was going to be impossible if she kept looking at him like _he_ was the one who had been breaking _her_ heart.

It looked like he was being given a chance to make his choice all over again and he wasn't entirely certain what he would decide this time.


End file.
